Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BON ESPOIR Y GIST AU FOND!, by JOHN COWPER POWYS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BON ESPOIR Y GIST AU FOND!, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: One shimmering opal is all the air
Last Line: And we are not yet the devil's food!
Subject(s): Dreams; God; Moon; Moss; Secrets; Nightmares


One shimmering opal is all the air
And the sun like a young girl's loosened hair
Covers with pools of liquid yellow
Window-sill, floor, and bed and pillow!
And I touch the secret -- yet have it not.
It is -- God! I've forgotten what --
Yet the lovely madness wherewith we're mad,
For no king's penny is to be had!
Ha! Monsieur Maggot and my Lord Rat
More's in this business than you guess at!

The road-dust sleeps in the summer-heat
And the hot noon drowses on ripened-wheat,
And from weed to weed in the burnt-up grass
Heavy-winged butterflies flutter past.
Ha! Monsieur Maggot! Ha! my Lord Rat,
There's more in this business than you guess at!

The moon floats high like a silver barge,
And the bracken ferns grow strange and large,
And the bull-rushes forget to shiver
As she pours her magic on meadow and river;
And the tall pond-reeds, where the cattle cross,
Stand silent; and silent dreams the moss;
And the hazel-wood as the owl hoots by
Is too moon-tranced to heed his cry --
Ha! Monsieur Maggot and my Lord Rat,
Here's something for you to squinny at!
We pine and pine -- but by Holy Rood
There's something here not understood --
And we are not yet the Devil's food!





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